As the world becomes more health conscious, the role of exercise in producing a healthy body is increasingly documented by medical reports and studies. Bicycle riding has become a popular alternative to running or jogging as a means for achieving good aerobic exercise.
As both bike racing enthusiasts as well as casual bikers continually search for new terrain to explore, the portability of a bicycle has become increasingly important. In order to achieve portability, modern day bicycles are equipped with quick release mechanisms, especially on the front tire. When the front tire is removed, the bicycle may be placed in the trunk of an automobile, to allow its user to easily transport the bike to another location for a riding adventure.
Easy removability of the front tire afforded by the quick release mechanism allows easy repair of the front tire and also serves to afford the bicycle owner some additional protection from theft. For example, a bicycle owner may wish to lock his bike up at a particular outdoor location and remove the front wheel by use of the quick release mechanism. He may either take the wheel with him or lock it to the side of the bike, thereby slowing down any getaway of a would be bike thief. Thus, it appears that a quick release mechanism for bicycle front tires, although of recent origin, will become a permanent fixture on the bicycle landscape.
The existence of this clever quick release mechanism gives rise to problems unforeseen by its inventors. Among these are the fact that once one removes the front tire quickly, the owner of the bicycle is left with a front handlebar and main fork frame which is essentially denuded of the tire and axle it normally carries. A kickstand, which is normally used to support the bike in a pseudo-tripod positioning, is useless to afford stability to the remaining bicycle structure once the front wheel is removed. Furthermore, placing the axle forks directly on a cement or other hard rough surface will lead to a scratching and wearing down of the forks, and subsequent difficulty in re-mounting the wheel on the bike. Thus, the invention of the quick release front wheel mechanism has given rise to new problems of a bicycle fork protection and stability for the remaining bicycle and frame.